Messages

Thanks, you guys. The positive feedback has really meant a lot to us, and helped to fortify our resolve to make the full version the best we are capable of making it.

This is a pretty neat start. Reminds me a lot of Roguelike games, except without the staggering number of options and items and classes and the DOS interface.

I think you could do a lot with it, especially with a storyline and adventure-like puzzles.

Thanks to everyone for replying, and for checking out the demo!Ã, 

The demo is great. I love the atmosphere. The background art is great, too, as are the character close-ups, but you should spent more time on animation, especially the walkcycle.

I definitely plan to spend more time on the animations in the full version. Animation is my weakest point, and that's about the fourth walk cycle I made--it's actually SSH's from the Walk Cyclist, because it was better than anything I could produce myself.Ã,  But I plan to keep working on it.

What I also hated was the GUI, this type of interface keeps me away from progressing further, it would be better if there was a label that told you over what hotspot/object/character you are at the moment. And maybe an easier way to access the inventory, but that's not as bad.

I didn't mention it anywhere partly because it seemed like overkill to include a manual for a demo, but the inventory has a keyboard shortcut, "i", and the journal can be brought up by pressing "j", if one prefers.Ã,  By the "interface", I take it you mean the sierra-style cycling icons? It's what kestrel and I kind of grew up on and feel most comfortable with but I realize that some people prefer something different.

As for labeling hotspots and characters--I had them labeled during beta testing, just to make sure we knew where everything was and didn't miss anything, but I deleted it for the public release because I felt like it was unimmersive. Again I think it's a matter of coming from the Sierra camp, as it were. That choice is open to debate, however.Ã, 

But I did like it, there where a lot of 7-days-a-skeptic-influences, but that isn't a bad thing. One more thing that striked me as strange was the way the credits flew by in the intro, I mean, either you should fix the position or have them fly by correctly, starting left all the way and flying to the right. The rest of the intro was great, very atmospheric!

I agree that the credits could be done a bit differently. They were one of the first parts that I made and I knew nothing about scripting, but I might be able to do something different now.

I have to admit I'm a bit confused by your drawing similarities to 7 Days. NTR is absolutely not a horror game, although I suppose that's not entirely obvious given the ground that's covered in the demo. More than that, I think any similarities stem primarily from the fact that we share some major influences with 7 Days. Any Trekkie immediately recognizes that 7 Days is a Trek-inspired game, and I don't think kestrel or I could make a science fiction game that wasn't heavily influenced by Star Trek.

Kestrel and I really liked 7 Days but I think if it influenced us in any way it was to inspire us with what could be done in AGS. The fact that our game also takes place in space is coincidental (we're sci-fi geeks; it was bound to happen).

I think it looks great. How did you manage that sand texture, if I might ask?

I love the colors you chose for the floor and I think this is a great start.

The only things I could add to what Penguinx and theeph said are that the countertops and counter bottoms seem to clash in color. I think it would help to desaturate the bottoms, but it might be better to just pick more complimentary colors. Also, the sink looks great but it doesn't read as well as it could because the contrast is too low, imo. If you made the different shades stand out more from one another I think it would look even better.

Can't I just lower the things on the ground instead?

Sure, that would work out the same. I just figured you had all that space at the bottom for a reason, like to put characters or objects in, or something. But sure.Ã, 

I think this is a really cool background and I think you've done a great job of detailing it.

The only thing that sort of bothers me is the fact that the separation between the bottom of the cliff face and the ground doesn't read very clearly to me. I would firstly raise it up, so that all of the things in the foreground aren't so close to the side of the cliff, and then shade where the two planes meet to show that they're actually perpendicular to each other.

Hi sthomannch!

Well, it's moved to a place that doesn't have at naked women, at least.

But I'm still looking for a better host.Ã, 

[The Story:]

The Story:Ã, 

Ã,  As a mechanical technician on a prison freighter, Ben Agincourt is satisfactory at best. He has always felt as though there were something else he'd rather be doing, but never managed to discover what it was. Now it may have discovered him.

Ã,  The Zero Colony run is a routine trip from the heart of modern civilization into the outskirts of deep space, where Zero Colony, a privately operated, maximum security prison world orbits a sickly green sun. Unfortunately for Ben, this is no ordinary Zero Colony run.

Ã,  Unruly convicts, incompetant allies, unfathomable alien races and brutal alien worlds stand between Ben and the truth. When he finds himself master of a damaged ship manned by an untrained skeleton crew, will he have the wit and courage to take the helm or will his one chance at command deteriorate into interpersonal drama and chaos?

Ã,  NTR is a duo effort and is kestrel's and my first game.


Screenshots:








Development Progress:

Story: 60%
Scripting: 30%
Graphics: 50%
Sound/Music: 50%

Features:
Dialogue portraits
In-game journal
Dialogue and deductive puzzles
Dynamic character interaction

Development Diary:

14 July 2006
No Traveller Returns is a dark science fiction game with particular emphasis on dialogue and character development. We're planning for it to be a full length game, but we decided to post a production thread when we had a playable demo to show.

15 July 2006
Found a bug involving the keyboard shortcut for bringing up the journal. Fixed and reuploaded.Ã, 

Please note that the game (and the demo) includes some gore and objectionable language.

The playable demo is here (thanks to SSH!).

He could cut it into pieces, pack the pieces in dry ice, and mail the parts to the four corners of the earth with no return address (from the post office, naturally, not his home).

But I lean a little bit toward Krysis on this one. I think if he's going to be able to do something like dispose of the body, many players will want to see that justified emotionally/psychologically or they'll be turned off by his lack of emotion.

This sprite is really awesome. I love him. I want to play a game with him in it. The hair is just fantastic.Ã,  And what's wrong with an effete stance?Ã,  8)


I would maybe back off of the purple in the nose just a bit. Maybe get rid of some of the blue? Adding red might saturate it too much, I can't tell without playing around with it.

Also, I think the outline of the white area of the shirt is too different from the shading, which is too similar to the white. I would maybe darken the intermediate shade just a tad there so it flows more naturally from white to darker to darkest. And there's a pillow-shading thing going on with the right sleeve that doesn't read well, imo. It might work better if the top of the sleeve (the part nearest the light) had only the intermediate shade darkening it, and the darkest shade was left for places farthest away from the light. I hope that makes sense.

Making a sort of faux-pixel grid over an image drawn at any size is an interesting approach that probably never would have occurred to me. Thanks for posting this. 

I'm not the person to critique 3D work, but I think these are wonderfully functional in layout and attractive to look at. They might be a tad on the empty side, but I'm not familiar with what's supposed to be going on there, so that might be just fine.

I will say, though, that it seems to me that the pattern of the carpet in the first one is a bit too large. It plays tricks on my eyes and makes me think that the floor is actually much closer than anything else in the scene. It might also help if the floor had some sort of border around it, even if it were only a small one.

Also, the wood texture on the desk bothers me a bit. The configuration of the wood panels to create the form is not what I expect when I look at it. I'm not a carpenter so I have trouble being more specific than that; it's just those darker vertical stripes read kind of funny to me.

The wood texture on the wall of the ship looks fantastic, but it looks like you used the same or a similar texture on the crates there, and that doesn't work so well, imo, because the crates should be made up of much smaller strips of wood than the ship is. Right now it looks like the whole facing side of the crate is composed of a single pane of scored wood, and it seems like it ought to be several horizontal or vertical planks instead.

It would be easier to give feedback if you didn't post jpgs. It's better to post gifs or pngs, so that people can download them and give examples of their critiques that way, or so they can view them up close.

Also, regarding the character--have you imported him into the game yet? It looks like he's anti-aliased in a way that would create lots of messy pink pixels hovering around him. AGS only recognizes the exact transparency color you designate; any slightly different shades of that color will be considered part of the sprite, which means that most of the time you're going to want to make sure your outlines are pixel perfect.

EDIT: Hmm. I just read

(By the way, the pink background, it's because I need his hair - which is black - visibile)

Do you mean that he's going to have the pink background around him in the game, or just here on the forums?

By the way, Dan, I think you might find your introduction to the forums a little less bumpy if you take your time and read other posts to get an idea of what is and isn't encouraged before you post.Ã, 

As MashPotato said, there's nothing wrong with solid colors. I personally always begin with wire outlines and then go to boxes of solid color before I attempt to do any texturing.

What works better for me than smudging is to highlight only the area I want to add texture to and then dry brush very lightly on some portions with a slightly darker or lighter color, depending on where the light is. THe lower the contrast between the two colors, the more subtle the effect will be.

You'll notice with smudging heavily on just one color you end up with places where you've rubbed the color away and the white of the canvas shows through. Real walls don't have a bright white undercoat, so this doesn't make much sense when you're looking at the image.

With practice I'm sure you'll figure out what works for you, though, and wha tmethods of detailing you feel most comfortable with. 

I think it's a pretty darn neat sprite.

The static view is markedly superior to the walk cycle, though. To me he looks like he's scooting along... it doesn't read like he's crossing one leg past the other and taking normal steps. It looks like the leg that starts out in front stays in front and the leg that starts out behind stays behind. I think this is partly because his shoes are two different shapes and the shapes stay on their respective sides throughout.

Also, the hat doesn't really look like a fedora, which is what I imagine a trenchcoated noir figure would be wearing. Fedoras usually slope down in the front and up in the back; his hat slopes downward all over.

Lastly I think his torso is several pixels too long compared to his legs, but I could be wrong.


Hope this helps some and I can't wait to see the game.Ã, 

I've been excited about this game coming out since you started posting stuff in the CL.

So far, it looks really great. The inventory-of-clues is awesome, and it really supports the dialogue-driven puzzle concept. 

Thanks.

Turns out I clicked through the "you have the right username, now what's your password" screen accidentally, so I didn't realize I had the right username, and kept trying to put in the password for that.  But at least now I know how to hide stuff.

Nevermind, I figured it out.


But, hey. Someone else might need the thread. 

Thanks for the comments, Ashen. I'm saving all of this and I think I'm going to give it a shot, although I'm really liking the color/font combination I used for my test of the inventory window method, so it remains to be seen which I'll prefer in the end.

However, your original question:

I need a way to allow the player to scroll down in the list box, or turn pages in the list box.

What's wrong with the built-in ways? When a ListBox has more items than it can display, a slider bar automatically appears to let the player scroll though it. This is kind of ugly, though, and mightn't fit with your Journal GUI. (You can disable it by selecting 'Hide Border' on the list box's Properties window.)

Ahh. See, I hid the border before I tested it, so I didn't realize this happened. 

Scrolling is really my choice of last resort. I would much prefer a page turn, because, as you guessed, a scroll bar just isn't ideal for my GUI style. Also, depending on the number and length of entries, I think it could prove to be something of a hassle to have to scroll through them once you get far enough into the game to have had several of them show up.

You guys have given me several options to consider, though, and I think I'll try more than one and compare them before I make a final decision. Thanks again to both Ashen and Akumayo.Ã, 


PS: Akumayo, I'll be checking out that module later tonight when I have the chance.Ã,